On the train from Paris to London, a student fainted. His best friend found him in the bathroom, curled around the toilet, looking as though he had decided to take a bit of a snooze right there on the floor. We woke him, poked him, assessed his damage and then promptly alerted a train conductor. A few minutes later, the elevator music that had been dribbling weakly from the train’s speakers was interrupted by a harsh and scratchy: “If there is a doctor on board, please report to the loo in car 16. Again, a doctor to the loo in car 16.” We waited. No doctor came. Twenty minutes passed and our sickly student started to stir, sitting up and wondering aloud why he ” just passed out like a total baby.” As the conductor announced our arrival into the station in London, the student tried to stand up and make his way back to his seat. We reminded him that he was going nowhere until we got to the hotel and could have a doctor examine him. He sat down roughly on the floor and pouted. “But I can’t miss a whole day in London. What about Abbey Road? What about Windsor Palace? What about the Tower of London? It’s the city of legends. I’m not missin’ any of it.”
Unfortunately for him, he missed the entire first day. We took him back to the hotel where he slept for six hours and woke only to meet us for an authentic dinner of fish and chips at a pub near Trafalgar square. His idea that London is the city of legends is absolutely true. Each person has their own misty, romanticized version of what that London is made of. For me, it is the city of Shakespeare and Elizabeth I. It’s allure came to me when I read my very first Arthurian legend. For others it is the home of the Beatles, the inspiration for Harry Potter or the birthplace of the thick, brown English pint. Whatever the fascination, we all had our oldest and dearest fairytale notions of the city tucked away in our hearts, and London would prove able to live up to each and every one of them.
It began with the view from our Travelodge room in the King’s Cross section of town. It was as though we had stepped into a scene from “Mary Poppins.” We were stationed on the fifth floor facing the street and from our wide window we could see nearly a mile of rooftops rolled out in front of us, each with five or six chimneys poking up like sooty fingertips. On the street below, there were women in smart, black high heels clip-clopping away and holding massive umbrellas opened against the heavy rain that was falling somehow, from a cloudless, sunny sky-a phenomenon that occurs almost every day.
We rested, showered and changed and met with everyone for a tour of the city with our Explorica-hired local guide, Edward. Though we had Lynn with us the entire way, Explorica also finds and hires city-approved tour guides at each scheduled stop to help bring the city to life as only a local can do. In the past, the guides have been over-booked, rushing us from place to place and shying away from too many questions. Edward, however, made a fantastic, though interesting first impression.
He joined on the “touring coach” (as the English say) and introduced himself by telling a bawdy (though high school-age-appropriate) joke about Camilla’s drawers. He then went on to explain the intricacies of the nation’s love-hate-relationship with the royal family and their severe distaste for the “waxen, life-less, heiffer-esque” beauty of the new Royal Princess. He went on to say, “You’re not the only people who miss the late and lovely Diana. She was a gem, a tulip, a smile. We hold her in our hearts here, as we always will.” At that, the bus started up and we began a tour of some of the cities most renowned spots. With Edward’s help, we saw and touched and tasted everything London had to offer and came away from it with more delicious London legends and secrets to file away in our hearts.
When touring with Explorica, you’re going to see many, many, many churches. It’s part of the whole “educational” tour thing. After awhile, they all start to resemble one another. St. Paul’s is different. First of all, it is half black and grimy from hundreds of years of coal smoke and half pearlescent white from a recent cleaning. It sits in the middle of a part of the city that used to be quite old, until WWII. During the war, the Germans decimated every single building surrounding the cathedral with an onslaught of bombs. Yet, St. Paul’s remained standing. Edward revealed to us that it was simply, and literally, the hands of men that saved the church from certain destruction. During the excessive air attacks, the church stationed priests, diocese members and custodians on the roof where, as incendiary (slow-release fire bombs) artillery fell, the men picked them up and tossed them over the side of the building into the neighborhood below. The few explosive bombs that made it onto the building fell directly through the roof and floor continuing on into the catacombs below where they exploded hundreds of feet beneath the church, destroying only solid earth and old bones. It was an amazing feat of bravery and pure love for the place.
The inside of the church is airy and bright. There are many statues dedicated to American soldiers who helped the English during the war and a few are even buried in the catacombs. Interestingly, there are marks on the floor in the belly of the church that point to the general area where the bombs fell into the crypts below. In the spot where the church sustained the most damage from internal explosions now stands a tiny caf?, appropriately called the Crypt Caf?. There you can buy perfect buttery shortbread and a bottle of ale while you pull up a chair next to a priest and have a chat while you eat.
Apparently ale is very important to Londoners. “We like our pints, that’s for certain. In fact, we lose 50-60 people in the Thames each year due to drunken bouts of swimming in the wee hours.” Edward explained laughingly as the bus trundled along the river. He explained to us that British ale is a fine mix of barleys and wheats that is served at room temperature with “very little bubbly, not like the American stuff.” He also reminded us that this fine tradition of drinking pints goes back as far into English history as anyone can remember. According to him, the most famous imbiber was William Shakespeare himself. He directed the bus around the tower of London and back onto the length of Fleet Street where many of the city’s oldest pubs reside. There, he pointed us toward a tiny white plaster building poking out of a wall of sturdier and younger brick ones. “That,” he declared, “was where Shakespeare wrote much of his work; a pint in one hand a quill in the other while Marlowe glared at him from the corner.” A few of us grumbled at this and one chaperone, who was also an English teacher, asked the question that was on everyone’s mind “I, um. I thought no one really knows about Shakespeare. You know. We don’t even know when he was born, exactly. How do you know where he drank beer?” With a sigh and a smile, Edward enlightened us.
Shakespeare’s existence is not in question to Londoners. Edward explained that despite all the “educated, professor-type theories” proving the contrary, Londoners have their own proof that he lived, walked, and drank in the streets of London. He says it is like an oral tale, passed from one generation to the next creating a believable truth because it is the word of great-great-great grandfathers and has been written in decrepit family diaries. “Personally, I know Shakespeare lived and breathed simply because of what he wrote. He brought the streets of London to life. Hell, he brought the taverns of old London to life, including their drunken regulars like Sir Falstaff. You can’t do that if you haven’t fallen asleep with your face in a pint a few times, let me tell you.” We never found any real proof of Shakespeare’s drinking prowess, but we learned that London is made of fairytales and legends. All it takes for them to be true is a little faith, a little imagination and maybe a pint. Or two.